Filing Taxes

The first time I needed to pay taxes when I was working for SGS Philippines. I was a quality analyst/chemist there and the HR was pretty cool in handling all the paper work for my taxes, all I needed to do is check it out and sign. I never really understood how to file taxes and the people at SGS was cool.

My second job was teaching college chemistry subjects at DLSU while taking up my master’s degree in Chemistry. When it was time for taxes, I just consulted my colleagues that have the same employee rank as me with the same salary, and copied their forms since our forms would be pretty much the same. And I ever really understood everything.

I then went into business. My first business was the now closed computer shop Click Me! Computer Sales and Rental Service. My clients needed official receipts and I to be official, you need to process this with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). After 3 months of running the business, I received a letter from the BIR stating that I have not been filing my taxes. And I need to appear at their office at a certain date and failure to do so, was some number of days imprisonment and a cash penalty.

I arrived at the BIR office with no one being accommodating, no one helping you, and everyone you ask, will point you to ask someone else. There was a general information table but there was seldom someone there. After doing nothing for about an hour, I finally saw someone on the information counter and started to ask about my taxes. The person was totally not accommodating, was not explaining things well. So basically I just ask what are the list of things I need to submit and I’ll just come back, and hoping I get to ask someone else I know who knows how to do all of this. My company ended up availing the services of an accounting firm. And even up to now, my company is still availing the services of an accounting firm.

In 2003, I taught various web related subjects, various computer graphic software usage and PC networking and troubleshooting. And Lheng who was of the accounting department, pretty much handled everything.

Now in the US, I was needed to file my Income Tax Return statements. There is a Federal and a State income tax. Federal is basically what everyone pays, and for the State is basically, the taxes you pay only in the state where you are. With my experience with taxes in the Philippines, it was always a pain filing anything tax related. So many fields to fill up on various forms. I was never able to do it alone. So at the back of my head, I had this feeling of dismay since I had to study how to file my taxes returns. And if I have some accounting firm do it, I was worried about the cost again.

Then here comes along the software H&R Block’s TaxCut. After opening the software for the first time, it just asked a bunch of questions. The questions had easy to find answers. Just answered everything, it was not a quick process, but it was easy.

From the answers you give, if fills up the required forms you need to submit. And once done, it prints out the official forms you will submit, fill up with the correct information and all you need to do is sign and mail. Now that is one major big difference on how I did things here and how I did it in the Philippines.

Thunderbird

I was a long time MS Outlook user, not only for email, but for synchronizing with my Palm, where I started with a Palm m100, then cIII and now a Zire 71. I tried StarOffice, and this other one I forgot the name. I was not happy.

My Outlook crashed twice within a week. All emails were still saved, in a separate file, but all my message filter rules were erased. And from the looks of it, My data might be erased completely soon if another crash may occur.

So I decided maybe it is time to switch to Thunderbird for my email. And even if Mozilla made the Calendar Project and Sunbird, they are not yet synchronizable with a PDA. So for other PDA Sync functions, I’ll use the standard Palm Desktop and for emails, Thunderbird. Fast running, stable, happy.

New Team on Monday, Logo Approved, Laptop, Work

At work, we are grouped in teams. A designer, a builder, a writer and we do nothing but websites. Starting monday all designers will be on one team, all builders or Production Assistants will be another team and all writers another team too.

I’m not going to comment on this, but I guess the people happy about it are those that are not happy with their team. And the people not happy about it, are those that like their team.

Logo approved. 3rd logo was chosen. Check all three!

I didn’t post what laptop I got. That’s because I didn’t get any yet, but I believe I am getting John’s Dad’s laptop.

Work, work, work… SEO for Martal Exterminators will be done once I get the content. Logo approved for HomeSimon.com, I might make it 3D. San Diego Taekwondo needs some building for the inside pages. Graveyard Chefs initial sample design needs to be done too. And follow up on all these hosting deals. Reminds me of the demo account I need to setup for Ivan.

What laptop to buy…

After thinking on my trip to the Philippines…

I thought of buying a laptop. So I can bring my work with me, and even work on the long plane trip. Be more productive on lost time.

But I really do not have much money, the plane ticket is so expensive. I even searched for the best deal I can get for plane tickets, regardless of airlines and stopovers and not landing at the Centennial airport in the Philippines which is way better than the other terminal in MNL.

So I searched online for a good laptop deal with some low monthly payment. My first decision was if I will get an iBook/Powerbook or a Windows Notebook. I’m totally sold out with the power of the Mac, but after thinking of it, I will settle for Windows and will just start of with a MacMini for my use at home. But I’ll buy the MacMini when I come back from the Philippines. The my other desktop will run Linux.

Now that I have decided to get a Windows laptop, where do I buy it? What brand? I first searched on the websites of HP, Dell and Sony.

Initially, just by looking at the displayed packages, Dell has nice deals, good prices, low monthly payments. But all three websites had a “Customize” option. You choose the parts you want and the site computes the price along with the monthly payments. It tells you anyway if you are putting things that are not compatible so you can fix your options.

After customizing, making the options as similar as I can on all three brands, guess what’s the result? Dell, the one with the cheapest advertised prices, suddenly became the most expensive among the three. And the best deal was on HP.

I chatted with John on his views of the matter… Although he is a Mac advocate, he said since I am a PC guy, buy a Windows laptop and not a Mac. Which I agree, and I’d just buy a MacMini when I get back to the US.

He shared his views on using credit. And low monthly payments on a long term makes you pay for something for so long, until your laptop is old already and there are new ones out and you are still paying for the old one you have. But he also knows my concern of building up my credit history, since here in the US, no credit history, it is like you are unknown when you will buy a house or car. So he suggested to ask them if using credit will really help my credit history.

I am still studying all my options. I’ll let you all know what I got in my next posting.

Selling TLDs

I sell TLDs or Top Level Domains.

Domains are nothing but your address that ends in either of the following:

.com
.net
.org
.info
.biz
.name

I have a new web hosting client that has 2 .ws domains and 1 .net. So before his domains expire, I plan to have him transfer to my domain registration company. But I do not sell .ws domains.

I checked ICANN for any news about .ws, the dot website domain, maybe it is just some TLD agreement that I need to sign to be able to sell them too. ICANN did not even handle the domain extension.

So I searched Google and typed in ISO 2-letter country code. And WS was for Samoa. True enough, the .ws is the ccTLD of Samoa.

After all this time I really thought .ws is a TLD for dot website. It was just some marketing guy whoever he/she is, thought of selling the .ws as dot website. And whoever that reseller is, he/she probably made some amount of money already with all the .ws domains out there.

And this also happened with .tv where .tv is the ccTLD for Tuvalu.

Problem, but a good problem…

Current Projects
-Finishing a an SEO site.
-Finishing a design for a Taekwondo site.
-Closed a deal, design, SEO, domain and hosting for a real estate related website.
-Closed a deal, design, domain and hosting for a food business.
-Closed a deal, hosting and 2 add-on domains.

In the works:
-A mortgage company who is waiting for the requested logins from the domain registration company for nameserver changes. Once changed, another new web hosting client.
-A web designer just thinking of a domain name. Once he decides on what domain to get, he is another new hosting and domain client.

The rest are all proposal.

They are all coming in and I am not even hard selling yet. Just passive selling and they come. Thank you Lord.

Now what is the problem?

Too much work. 😀 But is a good problem. But I also know the mistakes of Action Online, my first web company. I was spreading myself too thin, doing everything, to the point it cannot be done. A lot of promises made to clients that were not achievable. But I know what do to now, since I already learned from those mistakes. This is one reason why I am only doing passive selling since I know what my limits are and has to streamline my whole business process first before I go for all out selling and this streamlining is in progress.

May mga mayabang din pala dito.

Akala ko lahat ng tao dito ok. May mayabang din pala. May isa akong kasama sa trabaho, nagpapaturo sa akin, kung bakit hindi gumagana yung ginawa n’ya. So ako naman sabi ko sige, ok lang, tinignan ko, and napakita ko rin ang mali. Tapos sabi ko kung gusto mo pang matuto tungkol sa teknolohiya na ‘yan, pwede ka mag aral sa site na ito, ni hindi pa ako tapos magsalita, sinapawan boses ko, sabi, pagaaralan ko rin naman ‘yan sa paaralan, ‘yun na ang susunod na topic namin. Ako ugali ko, lahat ng tao willing magturo, at pag masmadaming resources, masmaganda. Masmatututo at masmagandang makakita ng iba’t ibang paraan kung paano gawin and trabaho. Tapos ibang isidente naman, sabi nung isang kasama ko, nakipag talo daw ako sa boss ko para gumamit ng ibang program na gawa ko mismo and hindi yung offered ng kumpanya. Aba humirit ulit… sabi, sigurado naman ako madaling gamitin ang offer ng kumpanya, ba’t ayaw mo gamitin? Nyack?!? Natural madali. Hindi ko naman ayaw gamitin kasi nahihirapan ako, ayaw ko gamitin kasi pangit. Masmahirap pa nga ang gagawin ko, kasi hindi pa nagagawa, simula sa simula gagawin ko. Pero syempre, ako si Benj, na mula pa nung bata, smile lang ako. Hindi ko na kailangan makipagsabayan sa pataasan ng ihi. Pupurihin ko pa s’ya! Ang galing mo ah. Tuwang tuwa naman s’ya. Nyhahahaha.